Rochester Locking Antoinette In Attic

He sees antoinette as a source of madness and hopes that by locking her away in england he will be able to put her aside and forget about her.

Rochester locking antoinette in attic.

It gives readers an alternative view of charlotte brönte s jane eyre written from the perspective of bertha or antoinette as she is known in this novel rochester s mad wife who lives in the attic of thornfield hall. Without a face she becomes a ghost. By putting antoinette in a mirrorless prison alone save for a taciturn guard rochester exacerbates her feeling of disconnection. Rochester first entices antoinette to fall in love with him begins to attack her identity by calling her by other names takes a lover basically in front of her and finally labeling her insane by rationalizing it is in her genetic make up.

In a move that symbolizes the influence of white english men over the caribbean people rochester takes ultimate control of antoinette by locking her in attic for the rest of her life. Rochester subsequently in jane eyre locks bertha up to silence her. Without a name she does not know what to call herself. Bertha mason full name bertha antoinetta mason is a fictional character in charlotte brontë s 1847 novel jane eyre.

Wide sargasso sea is a postcolonial novel by jean rhys published in 1966. At rochester s home in england the servant grace poole watches over antoinette in the attic. The third part is once again told mostly by antoinette in england where she is locked away in mr. While confined antoinette has a tenuous hold on her memory and her sense of self.

Rochester s father and brother have since died leaving him to inherit the family s fortune. Eff another servant pay grace poole double her wages if she promises not to speak about antoinette to the others in the household. Part of the novel that mr. As readers we are immediately made nervous by this new name not only do we sense rochester s impending erasure of antoinette but we associate the name bertha with the madwoman he will lock up in the attic of thornfield hall.

She is described as the violently insane first wife of edward rochester who moved her to thornfield hall and locked her in a room on the third floor. She dimly remembers the voyage across the sea to england and she vaguely recalls trying to seduce a man to help her escape. Rochester and antoinette s marriage takes place and it is where both characters describe their feelings for each other. Bertha through her suicide rejects the confinement that she had been subjected to.

He has already deprived her of her name calling her bertha and effectively erasing her existence as antoinette.